Written by Janna Phelps
Have you ever had a friend that you could just " click" with? I've had a few like that in my life, but just recently the Lord has given me an unlikely younger friend.
I am in the middle of my life, but this young lady is just beginning her young adulthood years. Yet, when we get together, we can talk for hours without having to "come up with something to talk about". When I was an unsaved girl in my early twenties, someone told me that you'll do good if 'you can count your true friends of a lifetime-- on one hand'. As an unsaved person, that may be true…but as a Christian, I have a whole church full of true friends! I think what she meant was that in a person's lifetime, there will be just a few people that are kindred spirits (to borrow a phrase from Anne of Green Gables), who you don't have to pretend with. If you called them after 20 years of no contact, you would be able to pick right up where you had left off.
I've had a few such friends, but God has granted me the gift of yet…another!
My unlikely friend, Rachel, is a college student who I've known since she was a little girl. She is going to school right now to be a nurse and that may have been the jumping off point for this friendship because I too, used to be a nurse. As she graduated from High school and then went to college, our relationship became one more of equality.
My adventures with my unlikely friend are numerous and I find a smile creeping into my face and a slow giggle churning up inside of me when I remember them. Once upon a time, and not too very long ago, I was able to be a chaperone at one of our school's Spring Flings, when Rachel was a student in our Christian school. As is our usual custom with the teens, we went out to a restaurant at 4:00 a.m. and Rachel and I sat at the same table.
As we waited for our food to come, Rachel began to create mischief and made an elaborate catapult out of her spoon, fork and knife. She then proceeded to launch a piece of ice into the air. It was so good that, the lone piece of ice sailed effortlessly through the air and hit one of the young men of our church in the back! Now, remember… it is 4:00 in the morning, (everything is funnier then) and Rachel and I dissolved into laughter! So much so, that it didn't take long until we were crying! What a bonding moment!
It was my oldest son's very first Spring Fling, and as he watched this unusual behavior coming from his mother, he replied to my husband, "Dad, I think Mom needs a chaperone!"
One day a few years ago, right before Christmas, Rachel and I decided to "do lunch." After lunch, we decided to go walk the mall. As we were strolling down the halls, chatting and looking in the windows, one of the mall vendors that is usually set up in the middle of the mall hall, approached us. Not wanting to be rude, we stopped and the lady grabbed Rachel's hand and began buffing one of her fingernails while all the time, she kept up a steady verbal stream of her sales pitch. Then she proceeded to bring out a tube of lotion, unscrewed the cap, and asked Rachel to smell how nice the fragrance was. As she put the tube under Rachel's nose, she squeezed just a little. Instead of perfumed air--- out jumped a blob of lotion that landed right on Rachel's nose! The lady profusely apologized while keeping up her feverish sales pitch! The first chance we found to escape, we bolted down the mall hallway and fell into another fit of
laughter until we almost had to sit down!
There were two positives that came out of this crazy experience with my unlikely friend… Rachel was quick to say that the lotion did have a nice fragrance to it and I was cheered in the knowlegde that the world smelled a little better for her that day too! We still laugh about it occasionally, and it will be a memory that brings a smile to my heart until the day I die!
I thank God for my kindred spirit friend, and I look forward to many more times of friendship and laughter with my dear Rachel.
Someday the Lord may call my friend to a distant land, to be a missionary's wife, or a preacher's wife in another state. If He does, I have the consolation that I will spend eternity in Heaven with Rachel, as we sing eternal praises to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!
As my Pastor would say… "What a deal!"
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